Are you looking to start your own photography or graphic design course?
This is the perfect guide for anyone who wants to create their own successful online education business. I’ll take you through the entire process, from finding a profitable niche to creating a high-quality curriculum.
You’ll learn how to set up your course, attract students, and make a profit from your new venture.
With this guide, you can create the perfect course for your students – one that meets their needs and exceeds their expectations.
You’ll be able to give them the skills they need to succeed in today’s competitive job market. And best of all, you’ll be able to do it all from the comfort of your own home.
Let’s dive in and get started on building your very own successful online education business.
What Are We Creating Exactly?
The online course industry is growing at a rapid pace as demand increases for practical knowledge and education but without the exorbitant prices of traditional institutions.
The truth is, when it comes down to it, online education has all of the perks and none of the drawbacks of formal education.
Online courses typically include the exact same elements, such as lectures, tutorials, and materials, but of which you can access them at any time and go at your own pace.
Online courses also offer assignments and projects that you can complete for hands-on experience. In addition, they also offer forums where you can ask questions and get feedback from other students and lecturers.
By providing an online course, you can pass on your knowledge from the comfort of your own home and be paid for it, passively.
Reasons you should create your own online photography or design course
There are many reasons why you should create your own online photography or design course. Perhaps you are a professional photographer or designer who wants to share your knowledge with a wider audience.
Maybe you are an aspiring photographer or designer who is looking for a way to improve your skills and you know by teaching, you’re also learning.
Either way, an online course can be a great way to learn new techniques and develop your craft. Here are just a few reasons why you should consider creating your own online photography or design course:
- You can reach a global audience. With an online course, you can reach students from all over the world. This gives you the opportunity to share your knowledge with a truly diverse group of people.
- You can teach at your own pace. One of the great things about an online course is that you can teach at your own pace. This means that you can tailor the course to your student’s needs and schedules.
- You can create course materials that reflect your unique style and approach. When you create an online course, you have the opportunity to create materials that reflect your unique style and approach to photography or design. This allows you to share your personal vision with your students.
- You can build a community of like-minded individuals. An online course can help you connect with other photographers and designers who share your passion for creativity. This can be a great way to network and collaborate with others in the field.
- You can earn income from your course. If you charge for access to your course, you can generate income from it. This can help offset the costs of creating and hosting the course, as well as provide an additional source of income for yourself or your business.
Whether you are a professional photographer or designer looking to share your knowledge with others, or an aspiring creative looking for a way to improve your skills, creating an online photography or design course can be a great option for you.
How To Build A Profitable Course, Step-By-Step
Building a profitable course is not as simple as creating high-quality content and throwing it up on the internet. If you want to charge for your course, you need to take a strategic approach to ensure that your investment of time and money pays off. Here are the key steps you need to take:
1. Figure out what your course will cover
2. Create a detailed outline or table of contents for your course
3. Create high-quality content
4. Choose an appropriate price point
5. Choose a platform for your course
6. Promote your course to your target audience
7. Provide excellent customer service
Let’s dive in and see what each step consists of.
1. Figure out what your course will cover
While the title of this article is targeting photography and design, it’s probably best if you separate each one into its own course so as not to stifle students with too much information.
Therefore, the first step is to figure out the scope of your course. A few considerations.
- What specific topic are you going to cover?
- How about the outcomes? What will the student gain by the end?
- Is it for beginners, advanced, or a combination?
2. Create a detailed outline or table of contents for your course
This will serve as a roadmap as you develop your material. Fleshing your course out like you would an article is the best way to approach the creative process as it keeps you on track and helps you to break down a large project into smaller chunks.
It’s recommended you break down your course into subheadings with their own outcomes in mind as well as handouts and exercises. Everything should also be set out in a linear, step-by-step fashion.
Also, try to make the course materials easily accessible, so consider using a tool that will compress pdf files, making them easier to download and manage.
3. Create high-quality content
This is essential! If your course material is lackluster, no one will want to take it. Invest the time and effort necessary to create engaging and useful content.
It should include:
- High-quality video content with clear audio (you can utilize an AI voice generator for narration)
- Relevant, supplementary hand-outs
- Additional tasks to consolidate the material
4. Choose an appropriate price point
Don’t undervalue your work, but also don’t price yourself out of the market. Look at similar courses and see what they charge, then set a competitive price for your own course.
Speaking from experience, this can take a lot of adjustment and experimentation. A good benchmark is to see how many similar courses are on sites like Udemy, where you can also see how many hours of content are in each program.
5. Choose a platform for your course
There are lots of options out there so think about what features you need and what you can afford. If you need something free, you can upload it to places like Udemy.
If you want more features, I’d recommend shopping around for the best online course platforms.
6. Promote your course to your target audience
It can be tempting to try and hammer every single social media platform in order to get as many students as possible, but this marketing tactic generally always fails.
It’s much better to do your research and pinpoint exactly where they are and hit one social media channel first. A few questions you can ask yourself.
Which platform gives me the biggest bang for my buck?
What kind of content do they consume and who do they follow?
Are they passionate about other things like certain charities, trends, social issues, or green marketing?
Use these channels to reach potential students and get them excited about taking your course. You could try email marketing to directly communicate with your target audience and share valuable information, updates, and enticing offers. As a beginner, a good strategy is to start creating both value and transactional content on your chosen social media platform.
Value content could be teaching people about a specific photography tip or advice while mentioning you also have a program. “How to” content is great, but it doesn’t pull in buyer traffic. For buyer traffic, you need transactional content.
Transactional content is most commonly found in review videos. Traffic ready to buy a product will often look for review videos as the final push they need to buy. You can use this to your advantage by honestly reviewing products and even other courses in your niche.
Traffic Highjacking
Traffic highjacking is a sneaky way you can also start making your first course sales. It is done by finding popular competitors in your niche and reviewing their products as well as creating a review for your own product.
The idea is that you give each review a rating out of 5, with your product as the best option. So instead of promoting competitor products in your final call to action, you recommend they check out your “number 1 choice review,” which is your own product.
Not many people know about this strategy, but it’s the exact same method I used to get my own first bunch of students. Please be ethical and don’t just downvote other products for the sake of getting views of your own. Ensure your course really is the best.
7. Provide excellent customer service
Once people have signed up for your course, it’s important that you deliver on your promises! You can use a customer portal solution to respond quickly to questions and concerns, and remember to always be professional and helpful. Exceptional customer service is an excellent churn prevention tactic that can help you build trust, loyalty, and long-term relationships with your customers.
This gives you an overall road map, but let’s dive into each step in detail to ensure you know exactly what to do at each stage.
Other Key Considerations For Successfully creating an online course
Creating an online course can be a great way to share your expertise with a wide audience. However, there are a few key considerations to keep in mind if you want your course to be successful.
First, it’s important to choose a topic that you are passionate about and that you have a strong knowledge of. You’ll also need to be able to break down complex concepts into manageable bite-sized chunks.
Additionally, it’s important to create engaging and visually appealing content that will hold your students’ attention.
Finally, you’ll need to promote your course through various marketing channels. Rather than try to hit every social media channel out there, spend the time to research where your audience actually is and hit that one platform hard.
Wrapping Up
So, there you have it. A comprehensive guide on how to build a photography or design course as a total beginner. This article has hopefully given you the knowledge and inspiration you need to get started.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. And don’t forget to share this post with your friends and followers – they might find it helpful too.
About Guest Author: Chris Hardy
Chris is a full-time content marketer running several niche blogs and a growing YouTube channel. A teacher at heart, Chris spent 10+ years as a professional dance and English teacher before diving into the world of online business where he made a name for himself on YouTube exposing “make money” scams.
